User:Nadimaccute/Fastream IQ Proxy Server

IQ Proxy Server is an efficient proxy server and it is a compact forward as well as reverse proxy server. It is designed to run on both 32 and 64-bit Windows. It is also for Windows Virtual machines that are v4.9.2 plus. There is a huge success on its compatibility issue as it is compatible with Microsoft Exchange, the larger Exchange server by Microsoft and also for all other web based servers that are running on [|HTTP]. IQ Reverse Proxy Server is designed to facilitate website administrators who can make their server secure by standing in front of them and also that they are able to rout traffic with the feasibilities like encrypting and many other ways. It is also an ideal Content Proxy for LAN users.

HTTP Load Balancer
A [|load balancer] helps to predict the number of requests that will be issued to a server. A load balancer consists of a [|Virtual Server] which is bounded to a number of physical services. These physical services that are running on the Physical servers in a server room contain the IP address and port of physical servers. In case of client’s request, virtual server selects a physical server from server farm and directs that request to the selected one. If persistence is configured, once the server is selected, succeeding requests from the client are directed to the same server. In case of failure of any service the load balancer continues to perform load balancing across the remaining services that are UP and if all services have failed then request may be sent to backup virtual server or redirected to a configured URL. The selection of suitable physical server is handled by load balancing methods.

Monitoring
The load balancing system sends periodic requests to the server. Monitors specify the types of request sent to the server and the expected response from the server. The response from the server must not be received later than the configured response timeout. The server marked down if the configured probes becomes fail and next probe is sent after the configured down time. A load balancer may support multiple monitors.

Web Reverse Proxy?
For reverse proxy we need to discuss forward proxy first. A forward proxy acts as the gateway for a client browser and send HTTP request to the internet on client’s behalf. The proxy uses its own IP address in order to protect your inside network. A reverse Proxy works contrary to forward proxy and acts as the actual HTTP server for client. It is an application proxy for servers using the HTTP protocol. It acts as the gateway to an HTTP server by acting as the final IP address for requests from the outside. The firewall works tightly with the Reverse Proxy in order to insure that only the Reverse Proxy can access the HTTP servers.

Why we install a load balancer reverse proxy servers?
There are numerous reasons for installing it. •	It acts as an additional layer of defense in order to protect the web servers. •	A reverse proxy exists in SSL acceleration hardware and when secure websites are created it does the SSL encryption of web server. •	A reverse proxy can distribute the load to several servers.

Benefits and Drawbacks of A Reverse Proxy.
Benefits of using a reverse proxy are that it allows you to add another layer to your defense that might just help you catch an attack against your HTTP servers. Second benefit is that you have a single point of control over who can access and to which HTTP servers you allow access to. A third benefit is that you can easily replace the backend servers or change the host name. Another benefit of the Reverse Proxy is the ability to assimilate various applications running on different Operating Systems behind a single facade. Another advantage is that hardware costs can be lowered significantly because outside and inside clients can access the same servers But there are some disadvantages of reverse proxy as well. If your proxy server crashes nothing will work because it is dependent upon the proxy server. Second disadvantage is that if an attacker does compromise Reverse Proxy, the attacker my gain more insight into your HTTP server architecture. You need to apply all security fixes to your Reverse Proxy and backend servers as soon as they become available and are fully tested and to install Intrusion Detection software on your servers and network. Third disadvantage is that there are a lot of translations that have to occur for the Reverse Proxy and the firewall to do its translations, so requests may be fulfilled a bit slower.

Features
There are approximately 10,000 proxy server installations running IQP anytime. IQ Reverse Proxy (IQRP) Load-Balancer supports a variety of features, •	It features the state of art technology in connection/thread pooling with 32-connection-per-thread architecture with thread pooling. •	IQRP utilizes the power of multi-core processors and launches one thread per each CPU during initialization and uses load-balancing among them with respect to the amount of clients they serve. •	In IQRP, users have the ability to launch multiple HTTP servers each one listening on its own IP/port pair tuple in the same single process. •	In IQRP, multiple URLs for client requests can be defined also multiple target servers can be defined for each URL as well. •	When a target server is unreachable or returns a HTTP 5XX response, then its failure counter is incremented. If this count reaches a limit adjustable by the user from the Options tab sheet (defined 3 as default) then the server is suspended from the cluster until a failure reset takes place in a period definable by the user. •	IQRP supports HTTP/1.1 basic authentication as defined in RFC2616. •	In addition to the Basic authentication scheme supported by HTTP/1.0, HTTP/1.1 servers and clients optionally support Digest authentication as defined in RFC 2617; Like Basic Access Authentication, the Digest scheme is based on a simple challenge-response pattern. •	There are three kinds of TCP filters in IQRP like IP address, domain name, and country. In order for a request to be read by the load-balancer, it has to pass all three filters provided that they are enabled. •	IQRP has W3C Extended Log Format which can easily be read by log analyzers such as Webtrends and Nihuo, it is designed to meet the following needs: 	Permit control over the data recorded. 	Support needs of proxies, clients and servers in a common format. 	Provide robust handling of character escaping issues. 	Allow exchange of demographic data. 	Allow summary data to be expressed. •	It also has NFServer v2.0 Log Format invented by Fastream for human reading.